1548 W. Turner Names of Herbes sig. E.i^v Linum is called in englishe Flax, lyne or lynte.

1562 W. Turner 2nd Pt. Herball f. 39 Flax is called of the Northen men lynt.

1733 P. Lindsay Interest Scotl. 154 Our present Way is to sow our Lint on any Ground, which puts us to a great Expence to weed it.

1786 R. Burns Cotter's Sat. Night xi, in Poems & Songs (1968) I. 149 The frugal Wifie, garrulous, will tell, How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' Lint was i' the bell.

1806 R. Forsyth Beauties Scotl. IV. 29 Flax, or, as it is universally called in Scotland, lint, is sown.

c1480 (a1400) St. Andrew 593 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 80 Lynt to bet þe fyr of hell.

1487 (a1380) J. Barbour Bruce (St. John's Cambr.) xvii. 612 Pik and ter als haf thai tane, And lynt and hardis with brynstane.

1488 (c1478) Hary Actis & Deidis Schir William Wallace (Adv.) (1968–9) vii. l. 423 This trew woman thaim seruit weill in deid With lynt and fyr that haistely kendill wald.

1562 in J. Raine Depositions Courts Durham (1845) 72 To pay the said Isabell every yere one bonde of lynt.

1591 J. Harington tr. L. Ariosto Orlando Furioso xxxiv. lxxxvii. 287 Each roome therein was full of diuers fleecis Of woll, of lint, of silke, or else of cotten.

1741 in A. Laing Lindores Abbey (1876) xxi. 272 For one hundred weight of lint to be given out to the poor people of the paroche to spin.

1792 R. Burns in J. Johnson Scots Musical Museum IV. 362 I bought my wife a stane o' lint As gude as e'er did grow; And a' that she has made o' that Is ae poor pund o' tow.

1830 W. Scott Lett. Demonol. & Witchcraft ix. 330 It was at different times a brazier's shop, and a magazine for lint.

1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 483/1 When this [sc. ginning] is done there remains of the bulk, as gathered from the tree, about one-third of clean cotton fit for manufacturing purposes, and two-thirds of seed. The separation of the seed from the lint is accomplished by different methods.

1883 ‘M. Twain’ Life on Mississippi xxxiii. 325 In sixteen hundred pounds crude cotton, four hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound.

a1887 in J. C. Harris Life Henry W. Grady (1890) 107 If New England could grow the cotton plant, without lint, it would make her richest crop; if she held monopoly of cotton lint and seed she would control the commerce of the world.

1967 C. R. Shaw & F. Eckersley Cotton iii. 10 The seed cotton..may be ginned three times but only the ‘lint’ from the first ginning is used in normal cotton spinning.

1901 G. W. Cable Cavalier xxi The lint-box of the old cotton-press was covered with wet morning-glories.

1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 217 Another..sharp-edged ruler, called the lint doctor, whose office it is to remove any fibres which may have come off the calico in the act of printing.

1891 V. C. Cotes Two Girls on Barge 78 A dirty lint-haired ragamuffin.

1933 E. Caldwell God's Little Acre vii. 108 I'd rather be a God-forsaken lint-head and live in a yellow company house.

1940 C. McCullers Heart is Lonely Hunter ii. iv. 149 I would have just been a preacher or a lint-head or a salesman.

1969 ‘J. Morris’ Fever Grass xvi. 138 I didn't kill that big linthead. You did!

1794 Blumenbach in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 84 180 The outward ones had some traces of our common lint paper.

1860 W. M. Thackeray Lovel the Widower vi, in Cornhill Mag. June 652 If Miss Prior..prefers this lint-scraper to me, ought I to balk her?

?1881 Census Eng. & Wales: Instr. Clerks classifying Occupations & Ages (?1885) 48 Lint Scraper.

1548 W. Turner Names of Herbes sig. F.iij^v Pityusa..oughte to be called litle Spourge, or Lintspourge, for it hath smal leaues like Flax.

1721 A. Ramsay Bessy Bell & Mary Gray ii Bessy's hair's like a lint tap.

1888 S. O. Addy Gloss. Words Sheffield